It's around 1pm, and the diner appears deserted. At least, to the naked eye, if said eye were only in the main room. To the naked ear, there's obviously someone in the kitchen -- a male, singing something about a lusty young smith and clinking things around enough to imply cooking, or washing up after. The smells the naked nose might perceive suggest that baking of some sort is well under way.

Robin meanders in, so preoccupied that he bumps several flowering chairs with his hip as he threads his way through the main room. He homes in on the scent of baking with the un-self-conscious directness of the absent-minded. "Food!" he says, poking his head into the kitchen.

"...so prithee, strike home and redouble the blow! With a jingle bang jingle-" Ren cuts off at the voice, glancing over his shoulder at the new arrival, from where he stands at the sink, scrubbing a dish. There is a smudge of flour on his nose. "Pies," he agrees cheerfully. "Hold on a few, an' you c'n have somea one of 'em, if y'want. How's it goin', cutie?"

"Pie," Robin agrees driftily. He wanders in and takes a seat on the counter. "Everyone here makes pie," he says. "Bless them. Have you ever wanted to do something completely unlike yourself?"

"Berry pie," Ren agrees, "...an' melon pie, though I dunno how that's gonna work yet. I figured, what the hell." The driftiness sinks in, and he abandons the dishes to dry his hands and look at Robin with a bit more attention. "Somethin' completely unlike me?" he asks, coming to stand in the doorway, leaning against the frame. "Lemme think. Wan'ed t' do =plennya= things completely unlike who I =decided= I was gonna be, but that's diff'rent, yeah?" He considers. "...yyyeah. Once or twice, yeah, I think. Why d'you ask?"

"What kinds of things?" Robin says with a half-smile. He emerges from his brown sudy enough to register Ren and to /look/ at him, as opposed to pointing his face in Ren's direction.

Serendipity watches Robin a moment or two, as if looking for something, before answering. "Guy got me into a fight, once, when I was about sixteen wints. Bunch of his friends around. He cried uncle... we didn't have any real big issue, he was just pissed I hit on his girlfriend. So. Anyway, he was down, an' I wan'ed... I really wanted t' kill him, just then. Didn't. ...did kick 'im before I left, though," he admits, not sounding particularly proud of it, though not overly broken up about it either. "Other time, there was this- it was this stone carving. Maybe palm-size. It was one of those family heirloom things some family had, one of a kind, irreplacable, sentimental value, you know the kinda thing. An' they were good people, didn't need teachin' a lesson 'bout that kinda thing or anything, an' it was the hardest thing I ever didn't steal. Didn't mean anything t' me, wasn't gonna sell it, just really wanted t' take it." He shrugs. "Plentya other things I wanted t' do I wasn't prouda wanting t' do, but mosta them're still me. Those two, not so much."

Robin nods thoughtfully. "Good, solid lizard-brain desires," he says. "Me, I want to corrupt a virgin."

Serendipity laughs once, startled. "So d'you want me t' talk you outta it, or wouldja prefer advice on how?" he asks, wryly -- and apparently half-rhetorically. "Mind me askin' who an' how come? Won't tell."

"Oh, you know," Robin says vaguely, "The astonishment, the token resistance, the first startled gasp of pleasure, the little helpless cries, the clumsy, shy eagerness..." He glances at Ren with a hint of an alert, mischievous smile peeking through the fog. "It's no use your helping me either way, though, because there are no other virgins of age in Haven."

Serendipity goes a touch absent himself for a second. "...the way their eyes get all full of wonder an' lust an' fear all at th' same time," he agrees distractedly, half-smiling, "'s really more educatin' than corrupting..." He trails off, then blinks and grins wickedly at Robin, returning to the matter at hand and arching a brow. "'Other,' really, hmm? You're prolly right; if there are any, they're prolly claimed already." He pauses, then teasingly offers, "Hey, I could always pretend."

"Oh, I want to /corrupt/," Robin says with a naughty smile. "I want to do things to them that they'd never dreamed of before. Things they'd blush to think about when they went back to their pure white beds. Things they'd never dare to do on their own. A mere education would be nothing."

Serendipity's grin broadens a touch. "Never said it couldn't be a really =thorough= education," he points out, with the hint of a shrug, and studies Robin appraisingly. "What kinda things d'you have in mind, that you've dreameda but they never would?"

"Oh, just to take one of the simple ones--of course, you need a proper restaurant for this one--you go in with them during the dinner rush--" Robin regains some of his vagueness as his description drifts from the general, to the precise, to the explicit, to the lush, to the decadent. He absently makes delicate gestures with his hands, sculpting and stroking the air. "...Which is, as I said, quite simple," he says, winding down. "The only truly... /educational/, if I may use your word, aspect of the evening is that he /must not/ react, regardless of what one does. He cannot even make a gesture to stop one. Perfect constraint, in a situation of perfect liberty."

Serendipity listens avidly; it may well be surprising just how intensely he can focus his attention on someone when so inclined. The buzz of the oven timer startles him, and he turns it off and removes the pies with scarcely a fraction of his concentration before he gets comfy against the counter again to listen. When Robin finishes, he grins again, slowly. "Y'know, y'don't need a virgin for =that= one t' hit full potential. ...but y'=do= need the restaurant or similar."

"An experienced man might have the resources to alter the situation," Robin says. Ren's laserlike intensity seems to vaguely amuse him. "Also, of course, any situation can imprint itself on someone's mind, but if it's the very first of its kind... Well, done right he may never be able to eat out without blushing again."

Serendipity gestures vaguely, and goes about making sure his pies are cooling properly. "=Experienced=, yeah; I'm just sayin' it'd do fine on most reas'nbly recent nonvrgins, too. Widens your pool. I mean, hell, tonnes of 'em go through the Farm, let alone Millenockett." He shrugs again, and grins, adding, "...done right, he's liable t' double his weight in a year."

"What wouldn't work on a nonvirgin, in one way or another? I only want the frisson of corruption," Robin says. He leans over to sniff the pies. "If I weren't interested in that heady blend of exaltation and vulnerability, I could take even an extreme non-virgin, like, say, a certain moon-haired youth, and--" He describes, in polite language and lascivious detail, a program that starts with certain traditional-activities-with-a-twist in private, and ends with a sly look and an idly drawn circle on a tabletop in a crowded bar.

Serendipity's grin gradually grows as he listens to this hypothetical enterprise, equal parts aroused, amused, and appreciative. "Y'know," he muses nigh admiringly at the end, "you got a hell of an attractive mind." That said, he drums his fingers on the counter a couple times before answering the question. "Th' exaltation an' vulnerability thing, yeah, that's easiest t' get with virgins. Or someone who's never gotten t' know how it's =s'posed= t' be before. But =corruption=, that's diff'rent again."

Robin smiles with gentle sweetness at the compliment. "I had a complicated education," he says. His fingertip continues to circle slowly on the countertop. "One /could/, I suppose, corrupt a non-virgin. But it wouldn't be as poignant."

Serendipity glances off toward the window, and admits, "There's def'nitely a power an'... poetry, I guess, in it. Just... keep in mind it's onea those things wth built in karma, yeah?" He looks back to Robin. "It's not corruption 'less you get someone t' do somethin' they honestly, actively think is wrong... an' t' do it of their own free will. An' know it. An' ideally, t' know they'd do it again. I mean, they can rationalize an' all, but. If it's not somethin' honestly against their beliefs, it's not corruption. So most virgins, just gettin' 'em into bed doesn't count. Hell, people who're supposta be monogamously committed're better targets for that."

"Corrupting the monogamous comes with a weight of boring, overrehearsed drama," Robin says lazily. "There's no pleasure in it. One may as well steal from the church donation box. Virgins, on the other hand, can be taught to think differently." He stretches. "I think you overestimate the purity of the average virgin's desire to lose his virginity. Most of them--the truly pure ones, the genuine innocents--are frightened and guilty on some level. Part of the pleasure lies in being their bridge, the rock they cling to, the one they go to to reassure them that it's all right. They don't wholly believe--not if they're pure--but they want to."

Another little shrug, and Ren grins agin. "I think," he replies, "we just disagree on what constitutes corrupting someone. I know most'f 'em are kinda scared an' maybe a li'l guilty, dependin' on where they got raised an' all, but t' me, that's just parta educatin', unless they honestly intended an' think it's only right t' wait 'til they marry someone, or sim'lar."

Robin smiles slowly. "That would be the virgin I had in mind," he says.

Serendipity laughs once. "Ahhhhh. They're even fewer an' farther between than just plain virgins, y'know," he remarks. "...there's some places down south where y'might have some luck hunting, I s'pose. Just -- I got a feeling y'don't need reminding, somehow, but like they say, o shoshoy kaste si feri yek khiv sigo athadjol. The places they think people oughta wait, they also tend t' be inclined t' enforce it with, uh, force. 'Least in my experience."

"Or merely with the earnest and insistent desire to get married," Robin says glumly. He picks at the crust of one of the pies.

Serendipity reaches out and lightly smacks the back of Robin's hand, not hard enough to hurt, but unignorable. "That one's Martin's," he chides mildly, and pushes one of the others over. "You c'n dig into this one, though." Martin's pie gets pulled to safety. "Anyway, they c'n get =real= persistent, yeah, hence the advice."

Robin pulls his hand back with a moue of frustration. "You didn't say!" he says. "Pie is pie until you /say/." That schoolyard rule established, he pokes at the permitted pie. "He wouldn't get persistent," he says sadly. "He would only be morose, and hurt, and philosophical. I would rather have him persistent, but it's not in him."

Serendipity arches a brow. "First off, it's us'ly their family that gets persistent. An' second, so you DO have a particular virgin in mind. Just not in Haven, huh? An' not one you wanna stick with."

"There is a particular virgin that I would like, in a perfect world, to corrupt," Robin says. He peels back a bit of crust to investigate the pie. "As this is not a perfect world, I don't /want/-want to corrupt him, I only /want/ to corrupt him. I reserve my actual wanting for some other mythical virgin. Is this the melon pie?"

Serendipity ahs and nods. "Wantin' without intention," he translates. "...frustratin', innit? Yeah, that's the melon one." He leans over to investigate the investigation, waiting to see what's come out.

"It's an interesting combination of gumminess and juice," Robin says. He pokes a finger into the juice and, after some yelping and blowing, tastes it. "...Very /good/ juice," he offers. What seems to be left is, in fact, a great deal of juice, plus a layer of crisp crust, a layer of thick moist crust, and a layer of melon gum. Robin sighs and puffs the hair out of his face, looking dissatisfied.

Serendipity looks at the pie experiment critically. "...Maybe 'f we had some vanilla ice cream. Or meringue. Or both." That said, he pushes the third pie over. "Berry."

Robin blinks down at the berry pie as though he'd forgotten about the presence of pie. "...What? Oh. Yes. Ice cream." He rubs his nose. "Or whipped cream. I would /like/," he says, returning abruptly to his original train of thought, "to seduce him to take the edge off his purity--to make him human. Perhaps he might be appealing enough to stay with if he were... less appealing. As it is, just being in his nimbus makes me feel soiled by comparison."

"Heh. I told Martin once I thought he had just enough bad left in him t' be any fun, but he didn't understand what I meant," Ren remarks, giving Robin a crooked smile. "So if you seduced him -- your virgin, I mean, not Martin -- would you feel more even, or wouldja feel more soiled for doin' it?"

"It depends on how he reacted," Robin says. He looks depressed even as he cuts a slice of pie and lifts it onto a plate. "If he developed some sensuality because of it, I'd feel... not more even, but as though he had become more approachable. That's unlikely, though. He just doesn't have it in him. And I'd feel more soiled."

Serendipity reaches out to tuck one of Robin's dark curls behind an ear, gently. "'m sorry, foxy," he remarks sympathetically, and looks thoughtful. "Y'make it sound like bein' asensual is a virtue, though. Y'ask me, it's more like a handicap. Does he enjoy =anytinto hing=?"

Robin grins sadly and leans Ren's fingers in spite of himself. Ren's comment elicits a twitch, but nothing obvious. "He takes more enjoyment out of simple things than I get from all my electric toys," he says. "Being asensual isn't a virtue--far from it--but it does seem to come with the traditional virtues."

Serendipity smiles at the lean, and lets his fingers brush along Robin's cheek and jaw as he pulls his hand back. "So at least it's not extreme self-denial. Some'd say that's a vice in itself. There's some darkin' crappy people out there who're asensual too, usually seem t' think it makes 'em better'n everyone else no matter what else they do." He pauses, and adds reflectively, "=They're= fun t' corrupt. But that aside. Does =he= think you're soiled?"

[Sadly, never finished.]